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April 9, 2013
Futureland was an influential exhibition of photographs in Thatcherite England of the 1980s that critiqued the landscape of post-industrial decline in the North East of England and post-industrial impact on landscapes and psychologies. Futureland reminds us that the picturesque isn’t enough, and that any landscape is about so much more than beauty, escapism, and wilderness or indeed decline, neglect or re-appropriation.
John Kippin Hidden, from Futureland
The photographs John Kippin and Chris Wainwright represented the social and economic upheaval in the north of England during the 1980s and referred back to the language of the sublime--the post industrial sublime. Many of the traditional industries particularly in the North of England, disappeared in a relatively short space of time with a significant move towards new economic initiatives in the information and service industries.
John Kippin and Chris Wainwright are an early example of how photographers are responding to the dramatic restructuring of Western economies in the past three decades.
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